Talk:Nicholas Radcliff
Nicholas will almost certainly take a surname, so this article will be moving at least once. TR 22:54, 29 December 2008 (UTC) :Sounds good. :I'm hoping he features very prominently in Vol 3. Maybe even as a POV--I suspect we're going to get a slave revolt story. I can't imagine HT passing that one up. Turtle Fan 22:56, 29 December 2008 (UTC) ::Well, since he's told us this in the short stories, you're probably right. My question is, will the 3rd book be a novel dedicated to the Servile Insurrection, or will HT revert to the novellas approach. TR :::Since the servile insurrection is going to be a "big deal," plus the sense I get--but this is just me--that HT doesn't really know where to take the story once the analogs to early American history have played out, I suspect it rates the entire novel. That being said, it's hard to imagine where a natural ending to this story would lie. It could just sort of roll on indefinitely, in a gradually-diminishing roughly parallel course to OTL. Turtle Fan 01:07, 30 December 2008 (UTC) ::::The existence of the short stories suggests HT has more of an idea of where this is going than you are giving him credit for. That having been said, there are two events HT will have to address in volume 3: Servile Insurrection and House of Universal Devotion. If he can't get them both, expect volume 4. TR 16:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC) I suppose we could move this to Nicholas Radcliff, as you suggested these eleven months ago, but in the half-dozen pages I read, in which poor Nick gets one of what I suspect will be but a handful of mentions, there's something about how he didn't use the name, or wasn't allowed to. A far cry from playing a major role in LA--We're told right off the bat that he's been dead for quite some time when the story opens, and that the POV with a connection to him doesn't remember a damned thing about him. So we get his father, who never met him, mentioning him right after he's born, and his son, who never met him, mentioning him long after he's died. The character never appears in the story, unless perhaps Frederick's going to have some weird flashback dream sequence--to someone he doesn't remember meeting, remember!--and that's not Turtledove's style at all, unless along the way Fred gets a toothache and replaces his bicuspid with one of Nick's. Also, it seems there will be no HUD in this story. Still contending that means Volume 4? Turtle Fan 05:18, December 1, 2009 (UTC) :No, I'm not Gizzi. TRe 05:44, December 1, 2009 (UTC) ::Big of you to admit that. Turtle Fan 05:56, December 1, 2009 (UTC) :::More like self-serving. Incidentally, any dates mentioned yet? TR 06:03, December 1, 2009 (UTC) ::::Dates? Haha! Good one. Not even any hints, really. All we've got to go on--and like I said I only read about half a dozen pages--is that Nick fathered Frederick and died three years later, and that Frederick's been married for half a lifetime. I guess you can assume that the marriage and the fathering happened in the respective characters' late teens or early twenties. So assuming we want to use our best-guess birthdate for Nick (1778) we've got to solve for 1778+x+3+(y/2). Stick 20 in for both x and y and the story opens in 1819. I guess that sounds about right for the time frame hinted at in the short stories, but that's with a helluva lot of numbers pulled out of my ass. ::::EDIT: Just realized the equation I've indicated yield 1811. Also realized there's something wrong with it--I think it should be 1778+x+3+2y to get what I had originally gone for, but I like that answer (1841) even less. 1819 somehow feels righter than either of the others so let's go with the mistaken answer. Turtle Fan 07:34, December 1, 2009 (UTC) ::::You know, in retrospect you really do have to appreciate the irony that the seminal event in this story was an argument over what year it was. Apparently the difficulties of keeping track thereof pesisted till our characters just gave up on it. If it had been any Radcliff(e) save Edward whom Kersauzon asked to settle the dispute, the answer would have been "How the fuck should I know?" Turtle Fan 06:17, December 1, 2009 (UTC) :::I probably wouldn't care much if not for our project here, where precision counts for a great deal. Although, given that HT pointedly gave us the dates in "New Hastings" and "Audubon in Atlantis", it seems kind of a shame. TR 16:35, December 1, 2009 (UTC) ::::Same. The lack of dates here really gets on my nerves, because it interferes with our work. I don't think we have a reliable date of birth or death on a single fictional Atlantis character save Old Man Edward. ::::I'm sure it would bother me less, if at all, if it weren't for this project. I don't think I can say I wouldn't notice at all; dates are not irrelevant to historical fiction, especially when we appear to be seeing things like the Seven Years' War lasting one year. ::::Ooh, we do get another clue as to the date: reference is made to "the four centuries since" Atlantis was settled. Now we know the story doesn't take place in the 1850s, or if it does it's an inconsistency because the Servile Insurrection is over and done with by 1843. I took that to mean he was rounding, and was closer to four hundred years than three hundred. I think that gives us a window between 1803 and 1843. This is also in keeping with all the results of my efforts at algebra. Turtle Fan 17:10, December 1, 2009 (UTC) :::::He did a fair amount of rounding in OA ("New Hastings was established 200 years ago" and "Edward Radcliffe died 200 years ago"), so I'm inclined to go with rounding here. TR 17:57, December 1, 2009 (UTC) ::::::Agreed. Furthermore, I think most people would round, say, 352 to 350 rather than 400. You might start rounding up around 360 or 365 even though you were still closer to 350 than 400, though. ::::::Let's assume some time in the late 1810s or early 20s until we've got something more solid, shall we? Turtle Fan 18:45, December 1, 2009 (UTC) ::::::And we've got something more solid! "Like Clotilde Barford owner, she was from an old French family that had married into the now-dominant English-speaking wave of settlers who'd swarmed south after France lost its Atlantean holdings ninety years before." So ninety years after "Nouveau Redon." Which means that, unless our estimation of NR is well off--and considering the European events they refer to, that would mean all of eighteenth-century history got shifted way far forward through some half-assed butterfly effect--it's taking place after "Audobon in Atlantis." Sorry, TR. I know you kept going on about how wonderfully the books and the shorts had fit together. :::::::Yes, of course it takes place after "Audobon in Atlantis". I don't see the conflict. TR 03:56, December 6, 2009 (UTC) :::::::Oh, no, wait I understand. There weren't any references to the Insurrection in AiA. That was in "The Scarlet Band", which is set in 1880 something. Everything still fits thus far. TR 04:02, December 6, 2009 (UTC) :::::::::Oh. Wonderful. :::::::::I've got to wonder why this of all stories is the one where he's able to keep straight elements of installments written years apart. Turtle Fan 04:07, December 6, 2009 (UTC) ::::::::::Because he now had the Turtlewiki available as a reference, of course. :p ML4E 03:52, December 7, 2009 (UTC) :::::::::::That would be cool. I wonder if he could resist the temptation to respond to all of our comments about his work, especially the complaints. Then again, maybe he just reads the articles and ignores the Talk pages, fora, and shit like Inconsistencies. I think I would if I were him and I needed to come on here. Turtle Fan 04:05, December 7, 2009 (UTC) ::::::::I thought it was supposed to take place before AiA. Don't they refer to the servile insurrection therein? :::::::::Nope. Just the events of "Avalon" and the WfAI. TR 04:06, December 6, 2009 (UTC) ::::::::::I thought you had said something about LA needing to happen before 1843. I don't know why I'd know that date otherwise--I didn't read AiA. Turtle Fan 04:17, December 6, 2009 (UTC) ::::::::If it's after that story, maybe someone will drop in a line about it as a fan service. Turtle Fan 04:02, December 6, 2009 (UTC) :::::::::That would be nice. The HoU was mentioned in AiA, so if HT doesn't at least mention it in passing somewhere, then that could be a conflict. TR 04:06, December 6, 2009 (UTC) ::::::::::Not necesarily. It could just not come up in anyone's conversations or ruminations. I go most days without mentioning or thinking of, say, the United Church of Christ, and I don't think that fact would make any future observers who somehow looked in on me believe I was hopelessly out of touch with the times. Turtle Fan 04:17, December 6, 2009 (UTC) :::::::::::That is true, I suppose. TR 04:26, December 6, 2009 (UTC) ::::::As I read a bit more I realize the cause for my earlier underestimation. I had it in my head that Frederick was a young man. He's not--He's probably about the age Scipio was during the Great War. At any rate, he starts out filling a similar function for his plantation as Kip did on Marshlands. He's got some real responsibility so one assumes he had to work his way up a hierarchy, and that takes time under any ordinary circumstances. Turtle Fan 02:35, December 6, 2009 (UTC) Now that we have a date for this book to place in, let's try to puzzle out the black Radcliffs' dates. I think we had said that the earliest Nick could have been born was c 1780, assuming Nouveau Redon fell 90 years before the book started, Victor and Meg had fifteen years of marriage in the interwar period, and the WfI lasted three years. I'd also say he couldn't've been born much later than that, because Fred remembers the War of 1809 but doesn't remember his father's death. So he was dead by 1809 and his son was over three. I've heard lots of stories of five-year-olds remembering wars (myself included) but never of anyone younger than that, except for my grandfather who claims to remember Pearl Harbor (four and a half). I'd say Fred was born when Nick was in his early 20s, somewhere between 1800 and 1804. I'm leaning toward 1800 for the roundness of it and for the tweeness of it: Both Nat Turner and John Brown were born that year. By the way, there's a scene where Fred says his life had been easy and quiet up until his middle age. Now unless there was some great tumult he never mentioned that he was referring to well before LA, that really doesn't fly. Born in 1800 or thereabouts, in his early 50s in 1852--That didn't count as middle age in the nineteenth century. I can't imagine he seriously expected to blow out 100 candles, so he should have thought of himself as being rather over the hill. Turtle Fan 06:26, December 12, 2009 (UTC) :Just quickly, Fred didn't indicate that he had living memories of 1809, just that it happened in his youth. That doesn't go against your speculation, however. TR 17:51, December 12, 2009 (UTC) ::Hmm, you're right. Still, he attached a personal significance to a historical event, which people usually don't do if they were too young to remember it. Unless it had some other personal significance, like the day they were born or the day their parents married or something like that--very hit or miss, and Fred didn't mention that. ::Still, this means Nick may have lived as late as 1812, I suppose. Turtle Fan 18:43, December 12, 2009 (UTC) Dates of Death and Birth We know (as much as we can know anything like this) that the Insurrection was 1852, that the end of the "Seven" Years' War was ninety years earlier, that the WfI started fifteen years later, that it lasted three years, and that Nick was born in the last year. That puts his birth at 1780, doesn't it? ::Honestly, I don't remember if the AFI did last for 3 years or 2. I know Jelay said three, but when I read it, I was under the impression it was two. I think that I shall return to USA over the Christmas holidays. It was never fully catalogued and indexed, anyway. :::I didn't get much of a feeling for it any which way. Really, unless HT mentions the date or the month or at least the season periodically, how can you tell? Turtle Fan 02:26, December 23, 2009 (UTC) ::::Well, Radcliff goes into winter quarters at least once. Can't remember if that happens twice or not. TR 02:39, December 23, 2009 (UTC) :::::I think he went into WQ once and campaigned through the winter once. Turtle Fan 02:41, December 23, 2009 (UTC) As for date of death--How did you arrive at that figure? I can't tell you you're wrong but it seems a bit of a low-ball. That means Fred was born in 1798. Certainly men are fertile at 18, and the life of a slave is simple enough that there's no huge hindrance to beginning to reproduce then. Still I would have thought Frederick was a few years younger than the 54 you would make him if Nick died in 1801. Turtle Fan 17:00, December 22, 2009 (UTC) ::It was late and I was tired. TR 17:27, December 22, 2009 (UTC) :::Ah, I see. Turtle Fan 02:26, December 23, 2009 (UTC) You know, I've been wondering how every fucking person in Atlantis is a descendant of Radcliffe: He only had two kids, he shouldn't be that prolific a progenitor. I guess you could contend that every Radcliffe since then has been a great reproducer with the strongest of genes. But Victor buried three kids and had one whose age at the time of death was, if we adjust all our estimates to allow for the maximum range possible, 33 at most. He had only one son, and he lost all his children in infancy. Come to think of it, Victor never mentioned a sibling, so the low birth rate might go a lot farther back up the tree--though he did mention that the expression "as surprised as my great-grandfather" was used among William Radcliff's descendants, so it's unlikely it's been one son per father going all the way back that far. Now certainly the Radcliffe branches might be (clearly are) more reproductively successful than the Radcliffs, but the contrast does bear noting. Turtle Fan 02:26, December 23, 2009 (UTC)